Hi, > all the additions found in the tarball are generated automatically I > assume. Why can't they be simply added to the Git repo while creating > the tag in a classic "Releasing version foo" commit? (A common pattern
Isn't the obvious solution to use dual git+tarball imports? That way you have the upstream tag in your Debian packaging repository, and from the tag contents are imported to upstream/latest branch. Note that branch does not represent the upstream git contents, but the Debian import contents. If the Debian package is commit and tree same with what upstream release git tag, that branch will have no extra changes. However, is there are any special stuff going on in the tarball due to upstream practices, that will show up in the import commit, or if Debian has extra things going on (such as applying copyright:Files-Excluded removals) they too will show up in that commit, and from upstream/latest things are merged on the debian/latest branch. Also all tooling that do exports will do the correct export using the contents from upstream/latest branch at the Debian import tag (+apply pristine-tar if the git repo uses it). Git-buildpackage has supported dual git+tarball imports for many years, and a lot of maintainers and packages are using them. The whole structure has been in DEP-14 as well for many years. You can read a longer explanation of how to read upstream git commits, the tarball import commit and Debian commits in one single git repo in one single sessions with the same git log / diff / difftool commands in https://optimizedbyotto.com/post/xz-backdoor-debian-git-detection/#comparing-upstream-source-packages-to-git-contents
